The Bipartisan Heroin Task Force on Feb. 2 led a call for leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives to support public health efforts in fighting the national opioid crisis with additional funding in fiscal year 2018 budget deliberations and in supplemental appropriations for the Public Health Emergency Fund (PHEF).
Task force members urged Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), and House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-NY) to back up President Donald Trump’s public health emergency declaration on the opioid crisis with adequate funding.
“It is vital that stakeholders working tirelessly to combat the heroin and opioid epidemic receive additional resources as soon as possible,” according to the task force’s letter, which was signed by task force co-chairs U.S. Reps. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) and Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH), and task force vice chairs Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Donald Norcross (D-NJ), as well as 40 other task force members. The members include U.S. Reps. Dan Donovan (R-NY), Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Dave Joyce (R-OH), John Katko (R-NY), Mike Turner (R-OH), Ryan Costello (R-PA), Bruce Poliquin (R-ME), Rodney Davis (R-IL), and Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported more than 42,000 opioid-related overdose deaths occurred in 2016, an increase of 28 percent from 2015, according to the letter.
“Worse yet, the number of fatal fentanyl and synthetic opioid overdoses more than doubled to over 19,000,” the members wrote. “The opioid and heroin epidemic is no longer the worst drug crisis in American history; it is now one of the worst public health crises the nation has ever faced.”
Following the administration’s October 2017 emergency declaration, the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis on Nov. 1 released its report recommending new dedicated funding to support the declaration.
The Bipartisan Heroin Task Force’s letter noted that most federal resources for fighting the nation’s opioid health emergency fall within “vital” current federal grant programs, but “as the Commission noted, it is essential to dedicate funds to the public health emergency declaration, especially in light of the fact that the Public Health Emergency Fund is currently not adequately funded.”
And while the 21st Century Cures Act aims to help fight the crisis with an included $1 billion in funds, which the task force has fully supported, “175 Americans are dying each day — it is clear the nation needs additional resources to combat the epidemic,” the members wrote.